In 2007-2008 the world saw the worse financial crash in living memory. It began in 2007 with a crisis in the subprime mortgage market in the United States, and developed into a full-blown international banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. Excessive risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers helped to magnify the financial impact globally.

Massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies were employed to prevent a possible collapse of the world financial system.

The crisis was nonetheless followed by a global economic downturn, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession. The European debt crisis, a crisis in the banking system of the European countries using the euro, followed later.

Stock markets world wide dropped and housing markets followed. Housing markets often follow major stock market cycles as the knock on effects are played out with property being much more illiquid than most other assets. Unemployment levels increased, evictions and repossessions rates soared.

So what happened to UK property prices? The picture varied across the UK but the average fall according to Nationwide was 15.9%. The highest recorded fall was in Northern Ireland at a massive 34.2% and the lowest being Scotland at 8.1%. By the middle of 2008 property sales volumes had halved to their usual level as confidence levels hit rock bottom.